“If she’d stayed,” I said, jogging down a few steps to where my bike was parked, “Isis would have found her. If her child is prophesied, she’s a weapon, one any god will try to wield. It’s better she stays away from us.”
Bast sighed, but then she nodded and mustered up a smile. “I wonder if maybe I’d gone to Osiris earlier, he might have stopped Isis.”
Stop Isis? I wasn’t sure anyone could stop her, even Osiris. “Or he would have helped her.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“No.”
And that was playing on my mind. It had only been a day, but the god wouldn’t forgive me for raising Alysdair against his wife and then attempting to lay a curse on them both. He’d make me pay for that. But I’d had to make the act look good enough to convince them the girl’s death mattered, and to end it. Against the odds, it had worked. They didn’t know she was alive, and they didn’t know Chuck was my daughter. I planned to keep it that way indefinitely.
“I need you to do something for me.” I leaned against my bike and fixed all of my attention on Bast.
She eyed me suspiciously.
Outside of Cujo and Shu, nobody knew what I was about to tell her. She’d hate that I’d lied, but lying was what I was good at. It wouldn’t surprise her.
“Osiris did more than curse me to walk this realm and tie Shu to me. The curse…he can compel me to do anything he wants.”
She tensed and tried to hide the shock from her face, but I saw the twitch in her lips as the snarl tried to break through.
“I have no resistance against him.”
She blinked and her chest rose and fell quicker than before.
“Any word, any deed he orders me to do, I will.”
“Since when?” Her two words were both sharp with anger.
I wanted to look away, to bow my head and fix my eyes on the floor, but I didn’t. “It’s always been that way. I don’t like to broadcast it, for obvious reasons.”
“There’s a way out, surely?”
“No, I’ve looked. I can’t get around it. Shu is the best sorceress there is and she can’t unravel it. The things he’s had me do… Bast, I…”
“You don’t need to explain.”
She held herself still as if she were tempering her rage. Her throat moved as she swallowed. She looked at me, and I wasn’t sure I could stand to see the sadness softening her eyes. I didn’t want her pity. It was why I’d never told her.
“I need you to wipe Chuck from my memories.” There, I’d said it.
She frowned, and I knew she’d say no.
“If you won’t, I’ll get Shu to do it, but there’s no knowing what she’ll wipe from my head. I trust you to do it right.”
“There must be another way?”
“There isn’t. If Osiris asks me anything about that girl, I’ll tell him. I’ve done worse. Much worse.”
She closed her eyes. A muscle ticked in her cheek. “If I do this, you’ll forget I was here.”
“I know.” Was that so bad? I wondered.
“I can’t. I...” She pinched her bottom lip between her teeth. “It’s wrong.”
“And how wrong do you think it’ll feel when Osiris learns Chuck is not only alive, but that she’s our daughter and her prophesied son is still out there? You have to do this, for her. You’ve kept her safe for twenty years. This is just another part of that.”
“You won’t know you have a daughter…”
“I didn’t know before, and it didn’t kill me.” But it hurt now, like a vise had hold of my heart and was slowly crushing it. To lose her again after only just finding her…it wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. I’d be alone again. But life was like that, and I couldn’t say I didn’t deserve it. “You have to do this.”
“Yes.” The sadness was back, pulling her lips down at the corners. “I’m sorry.”
I tried to smile but didn’t quite manage it. “We do it tonight. Before then, take me out to dinner at that fancy restaurant you took Chuck.”
One last night. That vise around my heart squeezed tighter.
Her smile, small and fragile, was for my benefit. “I’d like that.”
Chapter 19
I wore Osiris’s borrowed suit. It was the only suit in a closet consisting of dark clothing only suitable for walking across rooftops at night. I’d considered shredding it and lighting it on fire, but Osiris wouldn’t give a shit and I’d be down a perfectly good suit.
Bast had toned down her scary-goth look and wore a full-length, plum-colored gown. I’d told her she looked good enough to eat and then winced and tried to backpedal with disastrous results. She’d found my attempts hilarious.
We ate expensive food and talked about my business and Shu’s early antics as a human-bound demon—anything but the gods. We even talked about what might have been, with Chuck, with a life away from the pantheon. It was fantasy, of course, but seeing as tomorrow I wouldn’t recall any of the conversation, it couldn’t hurt.
I should have known the gods wouldn’t let me have one night of peace.
I didn’t feel him approach. He had deliberately folded his power around him, tucking it in tight, allowing him to slip unnoticed through the real world until he’d eased into the empty space beside Bast.
“Do not move,” Osiris said to me, freezing me in my seat.
Bast snatched up a table knife, but Osiris snagged her wrist and wrenched it, cracking bones. Bast let out a sharp cry and dropped the knife. And all I could do was sit and watch. Nobody around us batted an eyelid. Osiris must have cast a minor spell to shield us.
Osiris—the bastard—smiled, clearly delighted. “Isn’t this pleasant.”
“Why are you here?” Bast snarled, cradling her wrist. She’d be thinking of all the ways she could repay him for the broken bones.
“Don’t,” I warned her, already sounding as though I’d given up. Whatever was about to happen, the best thing we could do was play along and weather through it, and if Osiris was in a forgiving mood, it would end, eventually.
Osiris had kept his right hand hidden out of sight under the table, thinking he could hide what he’d brought along, but I could sense Alysdair’s background hum. There was no good reason for him to go to the trouble of collecting Alysdair from my apartment and bring it here.
“You’ve had your fun, Osiris,” Bast growled.
“No, what I had was a minor god tell me my wife was murdering women, and the Nameless One—of all the creatures—raise his sword against my beloved.” His glare cut to me. “You attempted to kill Isis. That is treason.”
“I…”
“Don’t lie to me.”
I shut my mouth.
“Isis has many colorful ways in which she’d like to punish you, but the task is mine.”
I ground my teeth together. Clearly he’d brought the sword to use against me. There was a sort of ironic justice in that, which was typical of Osiris. He wouldn’t kill me though. I wasn’t that lucky.
He returned his attention to Bast. “Has he told you of his affliction?”
She glared at him but wisely stayed quiet.
“He has? Good. So you know the Nameless One is under my control. I wondered, at first”—he reached for Bast’s half-finished glass of wine, leaned back, and took a sip—“what it might be like to have Ammit’s student. Let’s be honest, shall we? He’s not known for following orders. He was the model godling…until his little addiction was discovered. So shocking it was that the underworld kicked him out.” Osiris chuckled. “They don’t shock easily in the underworld.”
Oh yes, he liked the sound of his own laughter and voice.
“A stallion, this one. One made of scorching desert sand, like the šarq—a creature of myth that could not be caught or tempered. He was quite the presence in the Hall, a fierce beast to be sure, but one who could—and should—be controlled.” He paused, probably sensing how I was straining against his mental shackles.
I tried to lift my hand off the tabletop, push
ing every measure of strength I had into that one tiny goal. Just a twitch, that was all I wanted—something to tell me I could work around his compulsion. My hand didn’t move.
“Make no mistake, Bastet. The Nameless One wasn’t given a name for a reason. The most dangerous of our kind inhabit my domain, and to give one such as him a title would be…well, he’d likely unseat the Great Devourer—”
“Ammit is dead,” I sneered. “Killed by the jackals as your beloved wife commanded.”
Osiris blinked, and his smile tightened. “Ah, yes. Unfortunate. Still, slumber or death? It’s all the same.”
It wasn’t, and to hear the god of rebirth speak so flippantly of life and death sickened me. “If you were ruling in the underworld, you could have stopped it, but instead you were here, playing the mayor, and your wife wielded your weapons. Isis makes a fool of you.”
He worked his jaw and dropped his gaze. I fully expected him to silence me once again. When he looked up, he still wore the perfect act of an indifferent god, but his smile had lost its luster. “Do you have proof?”
“I witnessed the jackals tear Ammit apart.”
“Did you see Isis command the jackals to kill your mother? The truth now. No lies.”
I knew where this was going and growled, “No.”
“Did anyone else besides you witness Ammit’s death?”
“No.”
His smile was back in true form. “The testament of the Nameless One, the infamous liar, is no testimony at all.” Osiris sighed and placed the wine glass down on the table. “Her sudden demise certainly explains why you’re wanted for your mother’s murder.”
My heart skipped a beat and my mouth went dry. “I didn’t—”
“Where is her soul? In the great river, I presume?”
Fear lashed through me. I wasn’t sure where Ammit’s soul was. I hadn’t stopped to properly weigh and judge all the souls I’d consumed in her chambers. Her soul could have found its way to the river, but there was an equal chance I’d devoured it.
Who was I kidding? I’d taken it along with every other living thing in her chamber. I’d taken it all.
Bast was looking at me with suspicion glittering in her eyes.
“I didn’t kill Ammit,” I said, pushing the words between my teeth.
“She gave you to me,” Osiris countered. “A transaction you’ve searched for a way to be free of for centuries. I’d consider that quite the motive.”
My thoughts raced in circles. Anubis believed I’d killed my mother? The implications were huge. I had to speak with him, but would he listen? As Osiris had pointed out, I wasn’t exactly the underworld’s poster boy for obedience.
“It was Isis. She had control over your jackals. She sent them after Bast’s women. Your wife did this, Osiris. You know it.”
He didn’t deny it. He probably knew exactly what had happened and maybe had even shared a glass of an innocent’s blood while Isis regaled him with all the details. But like the bastard he was, he’d prefer to see me suffer than let his wife stand accused before Anubis.
“Why would she kill your mother?” Osiris asked.
“Probably because…” I bit off my sentence, finishing it in my head instead:… your wife had her hand on my cock and I turned her down.
Killing Ammit seemed extreme, even for Isis, but she was as screwed up as a bag of snakes and gods with damaged egos did crazy things, like stop the Nile from flooding, destroying a civilization in the process, or kill other gods and point the finger at me. If I told Osiris why, he’d probably stab me with Alysdair. I wanted to get through this conversation with all my body parts intact.
“Don’t keep it to yourself, now,” Osiris pushed.
“Ask your wife.”
Bast’s suspicion grew, shock and betrayal on her face. I wanted to tell her the truth, and I would, later. I had to withstand the guilt she was piling on. I chewed on my lip and glared at my hand, attempting to will it into motion. Just a tiny flicker—a little hope that his compulsion had weakened. Anything.
“I could compel you to answer.”
“Yes, you could.” I gave up and glowered at the god. “You won’t like my reply.”
Rubbing his fingers together, he considered it. Maybe he already suspected the answer.
“Was it your idea?” I asked. “To allow my safe passage home to see Ammit? Or did Isis whisper it in your ear?”
He didn’t reply.
Isis had set me up.
“What’s done is done,” Bast said, the voice of reason. “Osiris, if we have offended you, I am truly sorry. Had Isis come to me, perhaps we could have stopped this bloodshed, but there is no use debating what might have been. What can I do to make this right?”
He turned his most charming smile on Bastet. “You, my dear Bastet, can do nothing. He, on the other hand, must pay a debt. Treason is a damning offense, is it not, Nameless One?”
Technically, no, but he didn’t want to hear how a soul’s weight was measured on good and bad deeds, not on whether the person happened to piss off the God of the Underworld. I’d consider that a damn good deed.
“Just get it over with,” I growled.
Whatever degrading act he’d force me to do, I’d forget it anyway. Bast would take the memory away and I’d be blissfully unaware this conversation had ever happened or that the punishment had taken place—unless I was dead. But there wasn’t any risk of that. He’d brought me back from death a day ago. Whatever he wanted from me, it wouldn’t be fatal. I’d survive. Always had and always would. Like he’d said, he wasn’t finished with me.
He heaved Alysdair onto the table, rattling the plates and toppling Bast’s wine glass. The wine splashed far and dribbled off the edge of the table. I looked around to see if we’d caused a stir, but people continued chatting and eating their overpriced food.
“They can’t see us,” Osiris explained, and then added, “Pick up the sword.”
My hand moved like it had a mind of its own. I had to stand to get a good grip, and my fingers curled around the handle. The familiar warmth spread over my hand and up my arm. I’d had the sword for so long that she was practically an extension of me—of my will—and an escape.
Osiris looked up at me from his relaxed position. “I want you to know, this was the lesser punishment.”
Here it comes. I swallowed, sword in hand. “The bitch pulls your strings even now?”
Osiris’s dark eyes flared gold. “Kill Bastet.”
I knew I couldn’t stop it. I knew, after centuries, that nothing could weaken Osiris’s hold on me. I knew, as I thrust the sword through my ex-wife’s chest, that it wasn’t me doing this, but knowing didn’t change the reality that those were my hands on the sword and it didn’t change the feel of how the blade shuddered when it sank between her ribs, into her heart.
She gripped the blade, and I remembered how she’d reached across this same table not so long ago and told me I’d be okay. She’d told me I was capable of more than darkness. Even now, her eyes said sorry, like she knew what this would do to my soul. Something inside me broke and crumbled away. Alysdair sang, drinking down the lightest soul I’d ever known, and I hated the sword, hated what it could do, and hated that Bast had to suffer for all eternity because I’d screwed up.
I held her gaze as the light inside her faded and her eyes dulled. I wouldn’t look away. Not this time. I owed her that much.
Osiris picked up my glass and drank down the wine. “With that done, I have politics to juggle.” He stood and flashed me a smile. “Enjoy the rest of your meal.”
“Daquir,” I whispered.
Ashes and ambers ate away at Bast’s body until there was nothing left of her. I sat down and enjoyed what remained of my cold meal.
Chapter 20
Shukra found me sitting on my office floor, leaning back against the wall, surrounded by scattered papers and splintered remains of my desk and all its contents. I’d taken Alysdair to everything before thrusting the sword into th
e wall, where it had stubbornly stuck.
Magic whipped around me, dark and deadly. I didn’t hide it. Didn’t care.
It hurt, everywhere and nowhere. I wanted to tear out my heart and make the horrible, consuming emptiness go away or fill it with drink, or death, or something—anything. Just make it stop. I’d tried drowning the ache in vodka. Broken bits of the vodka bottle glistened on the floor around me.
Godkiller.
I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, and curled my hand into a fist. Grief swelled inside like an incoming tide. I couldn’t escape it. Through every barrier I erected, and every time I tried to sidestep it, the weight plowed inside, filling me up and hollowing me out all at once.
Shu was watching me, considering her words. I hadn’t looked up, but I knew she was there, careful to skirt the fringes of my power.
“What do you need?” she asked after minutes or hours.
It was a good question. I needed the curse gone. I needed to kill Osiris and make Isis watch. I needed to be better—to be someone who saved people and didn’t kill them. I needed to be the man Bast had believed—had hoped I could be.
“I need you to wipe my memories.”
Shu stalled again, treading on ice. “Which ones?”
Through the fog and the pain, I lifted my head and found Shu’s face set in a grim mask. “Anything relating to Chuck and…and Bast. She didn’t walk into my office. She didn’t hire me. She was never here.”
She blinked slowly and evaluated the destruction I’d wrought. “That will be difficult.”
“Not for you,” I drawled.
“Can I ask what happened?”
“No.” I yanked off my wedding band, pulled my knees up to my chest, and rested my arms there. Light flowed over the ring, turning it to liquid gold in my hand. “Take this. Put it somewhere safe. Somewhere I won’t find it. But…” My throat tried to close off the next words, so I cleared it. “But don’t throw it away.”
She didn’t move. Her eyes darted to the sword sticking out of the wall and back to me, sitting on the floor. Her eyes, her stance, it all said no, but fear stopped her from denying me. It said a lot when the most proficient sorceress the underworld had ever produced was afraid of me.
Hidden Blade (The Soul Eater Book 1) Page 13
